In response to some questions he got from a student, Evan Coury has shared the answers to his questions about software development and engineering:

I found his questions to be well-posed and thoughtful, so I figured I’d post my responses as a blog post. I’ll be sending this post to Jordan, so if anyone has additional comments or advice for the kid, please feel free to leave some wisdom in the comments!

Some of the questions include:

Describe the duties and responsibilities of someone working in software engineering.

Do you have assignments that seem to drag on forever, or are they usually pretty quick?

Are there any specific tools or equipment required for your job?

What are the advantages/disadvantages?

So do most people work for themselves, private industry, or the government?

In this new post to the PHP Everywhere blog, John Lim asks an interesting question - why should PHP ever be taught in schools? (in response to this post)

If something is popular but hard to understand then we need an education process. To just shake our heads and give up is simply immature (or trolling). Otherwise we might as well say that English (or any other spoken language for that matter) should not be taught, because spoken languages are illogical, imprecise and therefore ... useless.

In this new post to the PHP Everywhere blog, John Lim asks an interesting question - why should PHP ever be taught in schools? (in response to this post)

If something is popular but hard to understand then we need an education process. To just shake our heads and give up is simply immature (or trolling). Otherwise we might as well say that English (or any other spoken language for that matter) should not be taught, because spoken languages are illogical, imprecise and therefore ... useless.

After having his MyBic PHP/Ajax framework, Jim Plush has decided to use some of this popularity to drive some charitable work for some underprivileged kids at a school that it wife works with. He specifically mentions some with more technology-related needs, such as a specialized left-handed keyboard.

So, how can I help, you ask yourself sitting there behind your keyboard? Well, it's simple, really - Jim has set up a CafePress shop with some great t-shirts for purchase - and 100% of the funds made from the shirts will go right back to the kids at the school.

After having his MyBic PHP/Ajax framework, Jim Plush has decided to use some of this popularity to drive some charitable work for some underprivileged kids at a school that it wife works with. He specifically mentions some with more technology-related needs, such as a specialized left-handed keyboard.

So, how can I help, you ask yourself sitting there behind your keyboard? Well, it's simple, really - Jim has set up a CafePress shop with some great t-shirts for purchase - and 100% of the funds made from the shirts will go right back to the kids at the school.